


The Soldier in the Red Room

by blessedharlot



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Minor Character Death, Underage Natasha, bucky pov, discussion of suicide technique, killing of an animal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:27:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4773524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessedharlot/pseuds/blessedharlot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He would give them no other choice but to find a way to stop him, some way to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Soldier in the Red Room

There was a great deal in their lives that elicited fear, he knew that much was true. The cold eyes were always watching them. The tight faces were always assessing them. They learned soon enough the wealth of information being gathered on each of them. The ritualized anonymity --- it was forbidden to share real names, even when girls roomed together for years. Older girls knew to be afraid of the hidden machinations of the headmistress, and knew to hide that fear. And the harsher lessons on the dangers of empathy… those chilled the heart. It was all built to be relentless... the shaping, the pushing, the close surveillance and impersonalness… the crafting of an odd culture of intimate sterility.

But nothing else about the program was intended to be as viscerally terrifying as he was. He was the centerpoint of fear.

The Soldier was the brute power that came for the girls. He was the visible predator in their lives, the unyielding force that mercilessly sought physical or mental weakness. They met midday in a brightly lit training room, and he rarely physically touched them himself. But it didn’t seem to matter. He took his inspiration from his own nightmares, his voice and movement and gaze all patterned after a deadly frost. His rare physical contact with the girls had earned him a reputation for somehow being made entirely of cold steel. Most girls found his style properly motivating. When he said “again” it made no difference how exhausted a girl was. She went again. When he said the dreaded “do less”... someone had to fight their own survival instinct, fight the gut-wrenching desire to throw everything at their opponent, and instead find the smallest winning move. His training assistants were an only slightly warmer extension of his will, and his speed. They followed his commands even faster than the girls could, giving them no time to rest or anticipate.  He knew he had to penetrate a girl’s inner landscape right down to the foundation; he had to plant that certainty in the base of the brain that they were not safe, that they were outmatched, that they would always be outmatched... that an enemy stronger and smarter like he was would always be waiting around the next corner.  He would give them no other choice but to find a way to stop him, some way to survive.

He taught specific combat skills, sure, hours upon hours of practicing agonizingly detailed work. But he also taught them lessons of awareness by keeping them off balance emotionally, terrorizing them into resourcefulness and subterfuge, quick action and innovation. Every time they would feel some security in some new skill, it would be his job - it had to be - to take that sense of security away… to make them hungry for more techniques to find control, to escape, or to kill. Somewhere in his depths, something contrary fought to be heard, but was denied. This was his job description, and its logic echoed loudly through the world that surrounded him. His own survival depended on that hunger and fear too. And even without input from Madame B. and his own handlers, he knew what he prepared these girls for. And he intended to make available every tool he could. They depended on him. He knew as well as anyone he was training them to live through the day, if the mission called for it. All the thousand actions it took for an assassin to survive the night. He also knew that some adapted to that terror better than others. He knew some were breakable. He knew because it was also his job to identify them, and inform his superiors.  

And so it went. They came to him at 14 years old, most trained vigorously in dance, tumbling and confidence games. The shift from ballet into boxing lessons was relatively straightforward for most girls, strangely enough. Their arms were not built for power yet. But they understood the need for form and precision. And they usually found within themselves a desire to strike and pummel… especially once they met him. Later that year, the first of several martial arts would be introduced. Lessons quickly began revealing the surfaces and planes on a body tied to incapacitation… and to death.

15 year olds began training with knives. The anatomy lessons intensified then… penetrating the deep waters of blood and breath. More control required. He learned to read the girls’ futures in their response to the first benchmark in blade training. That event always began sorting out the harder hearts from the softer ones. The Soldier noticed faces as they absorbed the first lessons, the hypotheticals of severing arteries. And he watched as they practiced on animals, and the blood poured and breathing stopped. Most of the fainters, actually, tended to steel themselves eventually and master the skills.  And the loud expressive ones, they usually learned control as well. It was the still, quiet ones that he had to watch carefully to sort out. Most of them would erupt with tension within a few weeks, sharp fragments of emotions only barely held in check too close under the surface. The fragmentation was usually a breaking point for them. But a select few of the ones who sliced in silence would reveal themselves to be made of diamond, hard like he was. They may present with any type of personality under the sun -- be the shyest or most outgoing -- but if they slit that first throat quietly, attentively, quickly, they would frequently be his best pupils. As it turned out, Recruit R was one such girl.

From the beginning, the slightly rounder redhead had taken to all of it with natural ease, first the dancing then the grappling… just another form of dance. Whipsmart and naturally athletic, with amazing gifts for observation and focus, Recruit R wasn’t always the first to pick up a new skill. But she always went the farthest to master it. The Soldier was soon regularly working with her and an assistant trainer after the other girls had completed the required skills. She was as relentless as he was at reaching what she set her mind to. And she already meant to be very good at what she did.

Marksmanship began in earnest at 16… and those gifted at it trained across several kinds of firearms. By now someone else was teaching them basic espionage, acting skills, psychology, seduction -- without intercourse at this point. He was the one teaching the end game, the crux of the matter… death and survival, the bone bare work of pulses quickening and ending.

She soaked it all up like a sponge. And they spent more time together… in the training room, on the shooting range. She had the patience for sniping, moreso than anyone in her class, and the two of them spent even more time practicing the tedium involved with that. They spent enough time together for him to see glimpses of her behind her not-yet-complete guardedness, in the cracks in her composure she hadn’t yet girded. He understood and worked well with her laser focus… and he knew just what a quality asset she would be. Every time he pictured the type of missions she would undoubtedly be sent on, he set about expanding her skill set even further.

He couldn’t decide whether he was amused or alarmed at the dry humor she employed more and more frequently with him. She amused him, but this indicated that his fear-based teaching techniques were being compromised. Soon enough, though, the gentler, more buoyant determination of her youth was shifting into a darker, guarded grace and determined frowns. So he let it go… and made certain to maintain his cold techniques around the others.

He didn’t mind being here. The girls needed his help. He was given an almost luxurious amount space by his handlers, as Madame B.’s staff watched him as well. His watchers often gave him some privacy in his quarters, which felt… unusual. He knew his training assistants all reported to Madame B everything that happened in class. But he had nothing to hide there. Once or twice he had found an older recruit to be rather pleasant to look at, but thoughts like his assistants occasionally voiced about the girls felt like an ancient, forgotten language to him. He had been training here without interruptions for what seemed like ages… maybe even a few years now. Yes, he had seen the changes time brought for some students, it’s been at least five or six years. Remarkable length of time. It felt… odd, to be in the world this long… to have a memory that stretched back to encompass children, some of whom now looked like women.  In this place, with these girls, little else seemed to exist outside the Red Room. Most of the time, little else troubled his mind...  beyond the usual, the chorus of voices that lived in the dark corners in his head. Those voices were easier to ignore here, for some reason, especially when he was training. The powers that be still sent him on short missions here and there. He was very occasionally assigned an older girl to bring along… to observe him or provide cover. But mostly, he focused on the recruits learning what they would need to know.  

One day they were training to improve Recruit R’s striking technique in close quarters grappling… going well beyond the required skill list, as usual. He had nearly ended the session several times, though, as she was being uncharacteristically sloppy, making erratic movements, causing his assistant’s blows to land badly. The man had given her a blow to the ear that concerned the Soldier, and when another nearly landed on her temple, he stopped them immediately.

“Let me continue! I don’t have it yet!”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

“Sir, I request, please. Please.”

There was a wildness in her eyes that he was unused to. It was somehow different than her usual combat fever.

The Soldier turned to his assistant, “Step aside.”

If Recruit R insisted on pushing past this… fatigue? distraction?... that was causing her mistakes then he would at least put his better reflexes to work at keeping her safer. She had an odd look on her face as he moved to engage her, that he would had thought was relief in any other setting. She squared up to face him. The training assistant almost immediately got distracted and wandered off as they worked.

They sparred a few more minutes. And her mistakes became larger. He warned her sternly to pay more attention to what she was doing, or he would end the session for good.

As she flew at him again, hard and unheeding, he realized. She was intentionally endangering herself. She not only left herself repeatedly unguarded, but seem to actively shift to make his pulled punches more dangerous to her. This wasn’t fatigue or determination to master a skill. This was a wish for self-harm.

This realization startled him out of his usual surety in the training room. He looked in her eyes and he knew he was reading her correctly now. She was... desperate. In overwhelming pain, only barely held together in a semblance of calm. He had never seen her in anything like this state.

She moved to start another bout with him.

“Stop,” he said.

At his word, she looked defiant. But as he stood there still, her tears only threatened to fall more quickly. He became vaguely aware of her odd moods of late… a childlike jubilance at one point, and more recently a great deal of somberness. She stood before him now looking... hollowed out.  And with the threat that he might end the session and remove her chance to push against an opponent, she slowly collapsed to the floor.

“You’re… hurt?”

She just stared at the floor, tears beginning to fall. He stood there dumbfounded.  Was she in some trouble? Or danger? She was too good a student to be in danger from official channels, and he knew of no grudge Madame B had against her. Was she finally breaking? Like the others? The thought made his stomach turn, for some reason. No, he knew the signs. She was as tough as ever before, even somehow right now in this moment, and this wasn’t fear of death or killing that overwhelmed her. He knew what those looked like in the girls. This was… something else.

He sat down near her and searched her face for clues to understand what was going on. Wait, she had gotten in trouble for something lately. It was minor though. Was there a…  

Incredulous, he asked, “Is this about a boy?”

“What?” She slowly shook her head. “That was nothing. It’s just…”

He knew nothing else to do. So he waited. The vulnerability in her eyes caught his breath in his throat for an instant.

“Everything I’ve given, all I’ve given up, all that I’m going to give up.  All they demand. And…”

He stared at her as she pulled the words from somewhere deep.

“I don’t know what I get back. I don’t know that I want this.”

A heavy silence filled the room for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was small and reedy.

“I can’t bear this.”

“Of course you can. You are the most skilled student I have ever seen. And you will be the best equipped before I’m done.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know what you mean.”

He took in a deep breath and shook the buzzing voices from his head.

“Recruit…” He sighed. His assistant, he noticed, was still in the next room. They were alone. The Soldier said quietly, ‘Is there something else I can call you?”

She was thoughtful for a moment. “Call me Natka.”

“Natka.”

He took a breath, and kept talking.

“I have a small knife I keep with me at all times. Right now it’s this one, but there’s nothing special about it. Don’t get too romantic about what you pick. Style and quality are not so important, so long as it keeps a very sharp edge.  The smaller the better. For concealment reasons. You have even more options for that than I do, though do take care in your choice of outer shape if you plan to insert it anywhere. No one, and I mean no one, needs to know you have it. You only need an inch or two of blade really, a small portable scalpel.”

He paused to make sure she was still listening. She was, with a puzzled look.

“Things get better, things get worse. The pain increases. It decreases. You find something to do to make yourself useful. Sometimes you find someone to help. It’s… I’ve been doing this a long time. Enduring.”

He looked around the room, and back at her. “It’s not always been like this, and it’s not always going to be like this.”

He had the impulse to touch her, to make sure she heard what he was trying to say. But he stopped himself, and continued.

“When I have the knife… I can choose. It’s my choice. Not theirs, no matter what they do. Not anyone’s. Mine. It’s my choice to keep going. And if there’s still something to be here for… hell, even if there’s not, but I think there may be tomorrow… I choose to stay. I don’t make the choice forever, I don’t make the choice to never consider the option again. I make the choice for today. And then I go about my business.

“It’s up to you. Everyday you can choose. Today, now, I’m giving you the choice. Just don’t slam yourself against someone else and hope they kill you. That gets... messy. You know enough to be quick. We have the time. You really want to do this, you know for certain you’ve really exhausted any reason you’re here? Then you take responsibility. Or, consider you don’t know everything yet. And there may be more in store for you than you realize… even in the next 24 hours. Or, just get angry enough at the people who want you dead not to give them the satisfaction. For today. You can decide again tomorrow.”

She had a funny look on her face that he couldn’t place at first. There were more tears, but less tension. It may have been his imagination but her eyes didn’t look quite as dull as they did when they had started their lesson.

He extended to her his closed fist. When she looked at it, he opened his hand and revealed his knife. She stared at it for a frozen moment in time. Then she looked up at him and shook her head.

He put the knife away, and stood up, offering her his right arm.

“I think that’s enough for one day. Go take care of your injuries. Meet me again tomorrow though.”

She nodded. They began to meeting every single day to train, no days off. Every day, as the assistant turned away or took a break or prepped by himself in a corner of the room, he found a private time to offer his fist closed around the pocket knife. For the next few weeks, she usually paused for the span of a breath and looked to be deliberating something.  Sometimes she glanced at the assistant. Then she shook her head. Then, she began to decline his offer more quickly. A few months later, she told him she didn’t need him to ask anymore. He didn’t know if she had her own knife or not.

 

* * *

 

 

She had beamed when she was told that she would accompany him on a mission, though it was no surprise that she was the one going. It was a position of prestige among the recruits, and she was the best in the graduating class. She would have a chance to support him as a marksman on a straightforward assignment, and he had never seen her lit up like that. He wished he could share in her enthusiasm. He certainly wanted her there. It was… he didn’t know what his hesitation was.

He had just received the mission briefing alone, before his lesson with her. The plan was fine, it just… he wasn’t sure what sense to make of his response. He tried to put it out of his mind as he worked with Natka… But something about the whole situation alarmed him.

As they worked the lesson, his alarm grew. It didn’t make sense. He couldn’t picture how she would make the extraction point in time, or how he would get to her. She was competent, of course she was. But…

She came at him with a blow designed to send some sharp power into his solar plexus. Without giving a single thought to what he was doing, he twisted the both of them to parry the blow and landed his left fist hard onto her shin. He heard a snap under his hand, and her yelp of shock and pain.

He staggered back in nearly as much shock. He really didn’t believe it. The moment came and went, and somehow he had done this. He just broke her leg, for no discernible reason. She… she was horrified.

“What… what happened?” She grimaced. “I don’t understand what happened. Why did you do that?”

He was getting his breathing under control but he couldn’t form any words. He made the mistake of looking her in the eye, and saw the realization of what he’d done settling in. She would not be on the mission tomorrow.

“Why? Sir?”

He looked away and quickly picked her up. “Recruit R, we need to get you to the infirmary.”

They were nearly silent as he transported her. Just as they rounded the last corner, she whispered in shock, “What have you done?”

He did not answer, but handed her to the medical staff. He couldn’t help but look her in the eyes one last time before he left. He regretted it.

 

* * *

 

The mission was completed, and he was devastated. He couldn’t process all that had happened. Would the same thing have happened if Natka had been there? Was there anything else he could have done?

There had been two other girls killed on missions with him before. He never knew their names, but he still saw their faces. He was sure their deaths had been accidents. Mistakes. His poor timing. He felt certain both times he would be punished, and still didn’t know why he wasn’t. He knew Madame B was cold and cruel, but he didn’t think she’d go that far. And then this time... she had made it impossible for him - even him - to get the girl out. She was there to be slaughtered.

He wasn’t clear what happened next. He knew he was malfunctioning. He knew he misbehaved. He knew punishment must be coming. He heard something about a transfer. He knew he was being transported away from the Red Room, away from the students who needed him. Away from Natka. She must hate him. Maybe she always did. And now he knew he wouldn’t see her again, or the others.

But at least she was alive. She would survive her childhood. And he no longer had a word for the feeling that gave him.

Perm. The Soldier was being transported far north, to Perm. He knew nothing of what would be in Perm. But he had a feeling there would be ice.

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

 

There was always fear, in every memory Bucky recovered from after his fall. It was always there. Always fear of being punished, fear of the voices, fear of getting lost in the pain again.  Fear of forgetting, fear of remembering.

But if he were perfectly honest, some few Soldier memories held little treasures inside worth keeping… scattered embers that had kept Bucky’s heart alive while he waited, while he hung on.  Sometimes he had felt pride in something. Sometimes relief. And sometimes a kind of warm distorted joy.

When he needed a break from the too-vivid present and wanted something more familiar, he didn’t always go back to before the fall… back to the happiest, most glorious times with Steve. That was a long time ago, and those memories represented a life forever taken from him. They were… complicated.

Sometimes, it was those warmer memories wrapped inside the Soldier shroud that were most comforting. They were familiar, but still pleasant. He often thought of his time in the Red Room. He remembered the girls, lots of them. The haughty ones that rebelled against grappling holds they found undignified. The tiny ones with great gifts for unseating an opponent. The shy ones and the aggressive ones, and the ones who were both. Every few days he’d remember another face, another personality. It hadn’t been his decision, the position they had been in. Now that he had his head back on a little, he didn’t entirely blame himself for their situation. While they were with him in the training room, he did everything he could to equip them to endure. If there were ever any expert in that subject, it was him. When he needed a break from memories of Hydra’s wipes and defrosts, or a break from the sharp and confusing reality he found himself in now, he remembered the girls. He remembered watching them grow from scared children to skilled adults. He remembered that feeling he’d have when one of them would find it within herself to stand proudly and fight him, even when they knew they’d lose. In those moments, Steve had been there with him too.  

And he remembered Natka. He desperately hoped she was still alive, somewhere. He didn’t dare check, for fear of what he’d find. He did everything he could not to dwell on his occasional nightmares that she was once a mission he had completed, never recognizing her. He tried not to even consider how he’d find her real name. He did wonder what she thought about his motives - all his motives, all those years - with her own hindsight and her experiences now as an adult. But if it helped her even a little to survive, then he hoped she still hated him.

 

 


End file.
